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The story of what happened at the border crossing between Nepal and India

(Republished from tuktukgoose.com)

Early on the morning of January 3rd, we set out from a love hotel in Butwal, Nepal. None of us had slept much and we were anxious to make up for the departure delay. We'd also been driving the previous night in the mountains which, as Chris will recap, was terrifying.

We arrived at the border town of Sunauli around 7:30. As was protocol, we went to the Nepal Immigration Office at the border and got the exit stamp. Then we proceeded to the India Immigration office with our passports to enter India for the first time...or so we thought.

Rewind to December 28th

On December 28th, when I had flown into Kathmandu, I transited in Delhi, where I'd arrived from Istanbul on Turkish Airlines. In order to transit in Delhi, I was required to go through immigration, which means I got an India entry stamp.

I picked up my luggage and proceeded to my Jet Airways flight at the Delhi airport which subsequently gave me an India exit stamp. I had a single entry visa which thus invalidated my visa. I hadn't known it at the time. I'd insisted to the immigrations officer that I was just in transit and he insisted that I'd be fine getting back into India.

Back to January 3rd, 7:30am at the Sunauli border crossing

The immigrations officer was a big, burly Indian man in his 50s. He was a hardass. He looked at my passport and said my India visa was invalid. As the color drained from my face I asked him to explain. He said that I'd been stamped in and out of India. I explained to him that I was transiting at the Delhi airport and was forced to go through immigration. He didn't care. We explained that we were part of the Rickshaw Run where we raised money for Indian and Nepalese charities. He didn't care. He said it was an issue of national security and that we were required to go back to Kathmandu to get our issue resolved.

This is where things get blurry.

Other Rickshaw Run teams argued for us to no avail. A couple guys pulled me aside and told me to just hop in the rickshaw and drive through. Sadly, listening to my illogical and extremely emotionally-charged self, I decided we were going to drive through.

My Indiana Jones moment

I told Seema and Chris to get in the back of the rickshaw. In the meantime, the five immigration officers formed a wall across the street, each one standing about a metre apart. They told me to turn the vehicle around and to drive back towards Nepal or they would have me arrested. I proceeded to make a u-turn from the left hand side of the street, but rather than complete the u-turn I put the pedal to the metal and went straight for the wall of officers.

Instantly, all five immigrations officers jumped on the vehicle trying to bring it down. They were punching me in the back of the head while Seema was telling me that this was not a smart decision on my part. Chris as I recall was speechless. Since a rickshaw only goes 5-10MPH (10-15KPH) in 1st and 2nd gear, we were pretty much in a no-win situation.

After going about 15-20 metres with the five men on the vehicle, I made a u-turn and started to head back towards Nepal. They told me to stop the vehicle instantly and then dragged me out by my shirt. A huge crowd gathered instantly as I got chewed out by the big burly man. He told me that I did a very stupid thing and that they could have me arrested.

They dragged me back to the immigration office sat me down and detained all three of us for two hours. Chris and Seema tried desperately to call the US Embassy which of course was closed, since it was Sunday. In the meantime, as the reality of what I'd tried to do hit me, I apologized profusely. The man who had spent his time furious at my insolence began to break. He explained to me what the implications of what would've happened if I had entered India without a valid visa, that I would get arrested eventually and that it's an extremely serious offense not to have a visa. He made me write a letter of apology to the Indian government. By the end of the two hours, despite how angry these men were earlier, we all became good friends, sharing cigarettes, laughing about the bizarre incident, and shaking hands and hugging.

I wasn't the only one

Oddly enough, at the border crossing, just as I was getting ready to make the trek back up to Kathmandu by plane (there was an airport just 6 km away), one member of a team of Italians, a woman named Elena, was stopped for the exact same thing. In fact, we'd taken the same exact flights from Istanbul and from Delhi. All her teammates had multiple entry visas, but she'd had just a single entry. As she tried desperately to fight the situation, I explained to her concisely that it was no use arguing, that I would be making the trip to Kathmandu, and that we could go together.

So Elena and I hugged our teammates and saw them off as they continued the journey through India, while we backtracked through Nepal.

The journey back to Kathmandu

We were required to return to the Nepal immigration office at the border to have our exit visas cancelled. They simply took out the sticker in our passport, but remnants of the stamp existed, making it look like we removed the stickers ourselves, so we emphatically refused this. They insisted that we'd be fine. We told them we wanted an official note from them to give to the authorities in Kathmandu to have our exit stamps rescinded. After a 30 minute discussion, they agreed with us and wrote us our letter.

As we were about to head to the airport, we were informed that all flights out of Butwal were cancelled. So our only other option was to take a taxi, for seven hours back to Kathmandu. We had no choice. I could probably write a 2 hour blog post on the 19 year old kid that drove us through the mountains and how he wouldn't live past 20 judging from the way he drove, but I'll spare you the details. This kid was insane and Elena and I were lucky to have escaped that journey with all our limbs.

In Kathmandu

We arrived in Kathmandu two nights ago. Yesterday we contacted the Italian Consulate in Kathmandu after Elena contacted her embassy in Calcutta. We received the gracious help of Sabina, a Nepali who represented Italians in Kathmandu. Without her, we might not have made it out of Nepal again.

She took us to the Nepal Immigration Office in Kathmandu, where they listened to our story. They told us that technically were in the country illegally and that we should be deported. After pleading with the officials, they decided they would review our cases, but that they would need to take a written legal statement about our crazy adventure from the beginning - about how in transit our India passports were stamped, about how we were stamped with Nepal exits in Sunauli, about how we weren't allowed back to India, about how we came back to Nepal, and about how we ended up in Kathmandu illegally.

This statement took the whole day today. But in the end we got our Nepal transit visas.

Regarding the India situation, we are required to get India transit visas which are valid for 15 days. However, the line at the India visa office in Kathmandu is notoriously long, so we contacted a taxi driver named Kumar who bribes the security guard at the visa office to get some tickets prior to when the office officially opens. For a simple 500 Nepalese rupies we'll be among the first in line. So we expect to get our India visas tomorrow and a flight to India later in the afternoon, where we'll be meeting up with our respective teams in either Agra or Jaipur.

Assuming everything goes well, I should be rejoining Tuk Tuk Goose tomorrow night or on the morning of the 7th. Wish me luck.